BEIRUT, Dec 26 (Reuters) - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad
sent a senior diplomat to Moscow on Wednesday to discuss
proposals to end the conflict convulsing his country made by
international envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, Syrian and Lebanese sources
said.

Brahimi, who saw Assad on Monday and is planning to hold a
series of meetings with Syrian officials and dissidents in
Damascus this week, is trying to broker a peaceful transfer of
power, but has disclosed little about how this might be done.

More than 44,000 Syrians have been killed in a revolt
against four decades of Assad family rule, a conflict that began
with peaceful protests but which has descended into civil war.

Past peace efforts have floundered, with world powers
divided over what has become an increasingly sectarian struggle
between mostly Sunni Muslim rebels and Assad's security forces,
drawn primarily from his Shi'ite-rooted Alawite minority.

Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Makdad flew to Moscow to
discuss the details of the talks with Brahimi, said a Syrian
security source, who would not say if a deal was in the works.

However, a Lebanese official close to Damascus said Makdad
had been sent to seek Russian advice on a possible agreement.

He said Syrian officials were upbeat after talks with
Brahimi, the U.N.-Arab League envoy, who met Foreign Minister
Walid Moualem on Tuesday a day after his session with Assad, but
who has not outlined his ideas in public.

"There is a new mood now and something good is happening,"
the official said, asking not to be named. He gave no details.

Russia, which has given Assad diplomatic and military aid to
help him weather the 21-month-old uprising, has said it is not
protecting him, but has fiercely criticised any foreign backing
for rebels and, with China, has blocked U.N. Security Council
action on Syria.

"ASSAD CANNOT STAY"

A Russian Foreign Ministry source said Makdad and an aide
would meet Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Mikhail Bogdanov,
the Kremlin's special envoy for Middle East affairs, on
Thursday, but did not disclose the nature of the talks.

On Saturday, Lavrov said Syria's civil war had reached a
stalemate, saying international efforts to get Assad to quit
would fail. Bogdanov had earlier acknowledged that Syrian rebels
were gaining ground and might win.

Given the scale of the bloodshed and destruction, Assad's
opponents insist the Syrian president must go.

Moaz Alkhatib, head of the internationally-recognised Syrian
National Coalition opposition, has criticised any notion of a
transitional government in which Assad would stay on as a
figurehead president stripped of real powers.

Comments on Alkhatib's Facebook page on Monday suggested
that the opposition believed this was one of Brahimi's ideas.

"The government and its president cannot stay in power, with
or without their powers," Alkhatib wrote, saying his Coalition
had told Brahimi it rejected any such solution.

While Brahimi was working to bridge the vast gaps between
Assad and his foes, fighting raged across the country and a
senior Syrian military officer defected to the rebels.

Syrian army shelling killed about 20 people, at least eight
of them children, in the northern province of Raqqa, a video
posted by opposition campaigners showed.

The video, published by the Syrian Observatory for Human
Rights, showed rows of blood-stained bodies laid out on
blankets. The sound of crying relatives could be heard in the
background.

The shelling hit the province's al-Qahtania village, but it
was unclear when the attack had occurred.

STRATEGIC BASE

Rebels relaunched their assault on the Wadi Deif military
base in the northwestern province of Idlib, in a battle for a
major army compound and fuel storage and distribution point.

Activist Ahmed Kaddour said rebels were firing mortars and
had attacked the base with a vehicle rigged with explosives.

The British-based Observatory, which uses a network of
contacts in Syria to monitor the conflict, said a rebel
commander was among several people killed in Wednesday's
fighting, which it said was among the heaviest for months.

The military used artillery and air strikes to try to hold
back rebels assaulting Wadi Deif and the town of Morek in Hama
province further south. In one air raid, several rockets fell
near a field hospital in the town of Saraqeb, in Idlib province,
wounding several people, the Observatory said.

As violence has intensified in recent weeks, daily death
tolls have climbed. The Observatory reported at least 190 had
been killed across the country on Tuesday alone.

The head of Syria's military police changed sides and
declared allegiance to the anti-Assad revolt.

"I am General Abdelaziz Jassim al-Shalal, head of the
military police. I have defected because of the deviation of the
army from its primary duty of protecting the country and its
transformation into gangs of killing and destruction," the
officer said in a video published on YouTube.

A Syrian security source confirmed the defection, but said
Shalal was near retirement and had only defected to "play hero".

Syrian Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim al-Shaar left
Lebanon for Damascus after being treated in Beirut for wounds
sustained in a rebel bomb attack this month.